[Boge]

...The company is in trouble. They've lost major contracts and profit centers. Civilian nitche markets won't save them. A line of plastic carry pistols would help. I may speak blasphemy but when reality and blasphemy collide call me Gallileo.

We have a winner. They'll never make it. Who actually owns the name & trademark? I had always heard that the state of CT owns those now having won them as part of the strike negotiations in '86 - '90. If so, the name will die in CT as well as the company. However, countless other big names went teats up, e.g., Sharps, Hopkins & Allen, Iver Johnson, etc., etc. All good things must come to an end.

 

[Boge]

A famous (unanamed for here) Colt expert toured the factory years ago and was queried what Colt needed to do and he told them..............................bluntly. He told them to stop the expensive, and needless, forging of SAA frames and investment cast them. He also showed them how to polish better & cheaper. He told them that they needed to offer a SAA for circa. $500 and they refused. They then proceeded to import in the abortion that was the Colt Cowboy (made in Czechoslovakia) and further trashed the name.

He said there were two problems that doomed Colt at that time: the mgmt. was made up of non-gun people who were purely bean counters. The second reason was that they are hamstrung by union obligations and that the union refused to negotiate.

Colt missed the boat entirely with the CAS craze that peaked circa. 2000. Instead, they snobbishly chose to cater to the Mounted shooters which has about as much following in the USA as soccer. The Italians beat them at their own game with conversions, '72 Open Tops, etc. This is a textbook example of why American businesses fail.

 

[Boge]

I was told a story by someone in the gun industry years ago that in circa. 1965 Aldo Uberti was summoned by Winchester to a meeting whereas they were thinking of having him make a new Model '66 Win. for them for the upcoming centennial of that model. Supposedly, Aldo Uberti wanted $0.50 (cents) more than Win. was willing to pay and he walked out. Win. proceeded to make a crappy pseudo '66 on a '94 frame which was ridiculous.

I often have pondered what would have happened if he had made the deal. Winchester is no more, albeit in name only by FN, and Uberti thrived. They later were bought by Beretta right after the old man died and his kids didn't want to run the co.


I love my Colt Frontier Six Shooters, however I get an equal, if not more elusive, feeling when I shoot blackpowder in an Uberti '72 OT and their conversions. I would never have believed that anyone would ever make repros of those models years ago.